Starring: Barbara Stanwyck, Preston Foster, Una O'Connor, Barry Fitzgerald, Denis O'Dea, Eileen Crowe, F.J. McCormick, Arthur Shields, Moroni Olsen, J.M. Kerrigan, Bonita Granville, Erin O'Brien-Moore, Neil Fitzgerald, Robert Homans
Writer: Dudley Nichols (based on the play by Sean O'Casey)
Cinematography: Joseph H. August
Music: Roy Webb
Editor: George Hively
B&W, 1h 07m. 1.37:1 presentation.
Released on: December 26, 1936 by RKO Radio Pictures
My experience: Criterion Channel
The Plough and the Stars is one of the least seen of John Ford's oeuvre. Not sure why, because it's an RKO film and that studio's films have regularly appeared on physical media thanks to Warner Bros. buying out their library years ago and releasing plenty of box sets back in the early 2000s. Perhaps it's the subject matter. An anti-violence, pro-Irish freedom film lasting slightly over an hour is not a huge sell, even if it is from one of the greatest directors ever, and features one of the greatest classic Hollywood actresses in Barbara Stanwyck. Still, you'd think it would be available somewhere, but that doesn't seem to be the case. Perhaps because it completely bowdlerizes anything slightly controversial that the Sean O'Casey play it is based on would have presented to audiences at the time.
American actors Stanwyck and Preston Foster are Nora and Jack Clitheroe, a Dublin couple in 1916 whom we meet in the midst of an argument. Jack is a commandant in the Irish Republican Army, and is waiting for a summons to arms, and Nora is firmly against his going, wishing he would choose her over his country. The rest of the cast is filled out by a mix of character actors and also original cast members from the 1926 Abbey Theatre production, including F.J. McCormick as Captain Brennan, who comes to Jack with his orders to move out. We then witness all the IRA soldiers, led by Lieutenant Langon (Neil Fitzgerald), gathering together to march towards the Post Office to commence the Easter Rising.
From here we follow the residents of the tenement house that the Clitheroes live in, including charwoman Maggie Gogan (Una O'Connor) and her daughter Mollser (Bonita Granville); Nora's uncle, Peter Flynn (J.M. Kerrigan) and cousin, the Young Covey (Denis O'Dea); alcoholic socialist Fluther Good (Barry Fitzgerald); and Protestant and British sympathiser Bessie Burgess (Eileen Crowe). We also spend some time down in the pub, where we meet Timmy the Barman (Robert Homans) and prostitute Rosie Redmond (Erin O'Brien-Moore), then follow Nora as she heads to the barricades at the Post Office to try to persuade her husband to come home, and gets chastised by two of the women there (Mary Gordon & Doris Lloyd).
As we all know, the Easter Rising was unsuccessful, and we don't get to see too much of it, although Arthur Shields and Moroni Olsen appear briefly as Padraig Pearse and James Connolly, respectively. Instead we are treated to the aftermath of the affair, as the family in the tenement house mourns a deceased tenant, while the British crack down on any remaining IRA soldiers they can find. Still, some people are still fighting back, including a sniper (Wesley Barry) who takes potshots at the soldiers while Nick clambers over the rooftops searching the safety of home. Just as he gets home, British Sergeant Tinley (Brandon Hurst) and Corporal Stoddard (Cyril McLaglen) pound down the door looking for him. D'Arcy Corrigan also appears as a priest at a firing squad.
This is a well-shot film, and I enjoyed it, but it's not one hundred percent successful at what it sets out to achieve. Firstly, O'Casey's play deals heavily with antiwar themes from a socialist point of view, and indeed most of its characters are such. The film, however, takes away that POV entirely, and only a couple of characters are deemed socialists, and their views are pretty much shrugged off. The play itself has four acts, and can run anywhere from three to its full six hours, depending on what edits the director chooses to make to the script. Obviously, with a 67 minute film, there's not a lot of time to sift through what remains of a dialogue-heavy play, and even then there's at least ten minutes of montage in place of actual dialogue. Not to mention the ending, in which Nora has delivered a stillborn child (she's not even pregnant in the film) and starts hallucinating that she and Jack (who by this point has been shot dead in the play - not so in the film) are walking in the woods (a scene which is transposed to an idyllic pre-Rising scene about a third of the way through the film). Missing as well is the scene in which she deliriously goes to a window in the apartment, causing Bessie to pull her away and get shot by a sniper.
So you see, the film is not the play at all. But how does it hold up as a work of cinema? Well, it's shot quite well. Lots of shadowy lighting give the thing a sense of oppression which helps, and some of the action scenes are quite nicely filmed, adding a real sense of brutality and danger to the mix. The acting is quite good. Stanwyck is always good in everything she does, and is here too, even though her Irish accent is sometimes laughable. Foster barely attempts one at all, which stands in sharp contrast with the rest of the cast, most of whom are Irish through and through. The other American actors gamely attempt a go at the famous lilt, child actress Bonita Granville most successfully.
The first roll call of the Irish Republic Army is shot backlit by torches, as the camera pans sideways past a couple of dozen soldiers, then cuts to a bunch of soldiers marching by at an angle. My first thought was, "this is quite impressive!" My second thought was, "Holy shit, Ford is cribbing from Triumph of the Will!" For those unfamiliar, the aforementioned film is a Nazi propaganda film, and while I can't see Ford connecting his beloved Irish with Hitler's party in a derogatory sense (in fact he most probably chose to shoot the scene that way because he saw the film and was impressed with its cinematic iconography), with what we know now, it seems in very bad taste indeed.
There is, however, an unexpectedly beautiful shot that says almost everything. We look through a window to see a woman sitting in silence at what looks like a desk; we only realize the desk is actually a coffin when a man comes in with a hammer and starts to nail the top on. This cinematic shorthand is something Ford was always very good at, and such is the case here.
Ford was also good at silly comedic moments, and there's a fun one here which engages in the comedy rule of three, in which O'Connor, who's just been kicked out of a bar for fighting with Crowe, throws a rock through the window and storms off. Crowe leaves the pub shortly thereafter and does the same with another window. After about a minute, the barman sees one of the rocks on the floor, picks it up and absentmindedly tosses it aside -- through what I can only assume is the window of the door.
As a whole, though, the film is very scattered and episodic. It's a decent enough piece of work, with some good performances and nice photography on the part of Ford's BFF Joseph H. August, and the performances are good (Barry Fitzgerald especially impressed me), but as a whole it never really gels. Doing research on it makes me want to see the play, however, so there's that!
Five polemical poets out of ten.
